Tarik Skubal is officially a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The most aggressive team in Major League Baseball strikes again by landing the top trade candidate on the market.
Skubal, 29, is a two-time CY Young winner (2024, 2025), and currently has an ERA of 2.79 this season across 16 starts with 116 strikeouts. The rich undoubtedly get richer, and the Dodgers are likely now overwhelming favorites to win the 2026 World Series with perhaps the most loaded roster MLB has ever seen.
The Los Angeles Dodgers X account wrote (on 8/2):
“The Los Angeles Dodgers have acquired two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers in exchange for outfielder Zyhir Hope and right-handed pitchers River Ryan and Brady Smith.”
The first report of the Tigers-Dodgers trade came from Jeff Passan late Saturday night, and then further reports circulated regarding the haul that Detroit received in return, which, as you can see, if Zhyir Hope, River Ryan, and Brady Smith.
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GettyDETROIT, MI – JULY 29: Tarik Skubal #29 of the Detroit Tigers acknowledges the fans after recording his 1,000th strikeout during the first inning of a game against the Baltimore Orioles at Comerica Park on July 29, 2026 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Duane Burleson/Getty Images)
This massive trade across MLB changes the entire landscape of the 2026 season.
LA now has a starting rotation that consists of Tarik Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, *Blake Snell (potentially returning soon), Justin Wrobleski, and Roki Sasaki. *Tyler Glasnow also figures to return soon, and that’s not even mentioning if Shohei Ohtani is pitching.
There is nearly $600 million tied into the Dodgers’ starting rotation right now (not including Shohei Ohtani).
MLBTR.com’s Charlie Wright and Darragh McDonald wrote (as the Tarik Skubal trade news broke):
“There was some trade chatter in the 2025-26 offseason, when Skubal was still a year away from the open market, but a deal always seemed like a long shot. The Tigers made the playoffs in 2024 and 2025 and were going for it again in 2026. Rather than sell Skubal, they held him and added to the team by spending money on Framber Valdez and others.”
“Unfortunately, this yearâs club backed themselves into a corner. The club had an awful month of May, while Skubal was on the injured list recovering from arthroscopic elbow surgery. Detroit started that month 16-16 but went 6-22 before the calendar flipped. Skubal made a remarkably quick return from his surgery thanks to the new NanoNeedle procedure and has been back to his old self in terms of results. The Tigers with Skubal played better in June and July, going a combined 30-20, but it wasnât enough. They made themselves fringe contenders at 2.5 games out for a wild card spot, which put the front office in a tough position.”
The Tigers seemed to have become very comfortable with the idea of trading Tarik Skubal after his last start, because there is still nearly 36 hours to go until the Monday deadline. They didn’t take this decision up until the buzzer (6 p.m. EST), but instead decided to set the trade market in the early stages, and there figures to be several more starters on the move in the coming hours, so the groundwork has been laid out clearly for impending free agents and their respective trade values. Obviously, not every starter on the move is the caliber that Skubal is, in fact, none of the rumored starters set to be traded is really even close to his level, but the fact the Dodgers were able to land Skubal for just three prospects is perhaps the biggest shock of this deadline.
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GettyDETROIT, MICHIGAN – JULY 24: Tarik Skubal #29 of the Detroit Tigers throws a second inning pitch against the Kansas City Royals at Comerica Park on July 24, 2026 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
It’s very hard to argue Tarik Skubal’s status as the game’s best pitcher right now.
There was perhaps a *slight* argument to be made after Paul Skenes burst on the scene in his first 60+ starts, but now that he’s regressed (somewhat), there’s no denying Skubal as the best pitcher in MLB.
For pitchers, statistics are everything, and Skubal’s over the past three seasons are flat-out dominant.
In 2024, he pitched to the tune of a 2.31 (led the AL) ERA over 190+ innings and 228 strikeouts.. His WHIP over the ’24 campaign was 0.922.
Skubal had an even better 2025 season, where he boasted an ERA of 2.21 over 31 starts (195+ innings) with 241 strikeouts, an even lower WHIP (0.891) than the previous season, and an incredible ERA+ of 187 (league average is 100).
In regard to his MLB career, Skubal has made a total of 150 starts (863.1 IP), and he carries an ERA of 3.04 with 1005 strikeouts. His K/9 over his 7-year career is 10.5, and he strikes out over five batters/walk allowed, which is just incredible.
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